The present invention relates generally to a bottle orientation system and, more particularly, to apparatus for aligning randomly oriented bottles of open-end leading and open-end trailing dispositions in a train of such bottles so that they are selectively inverted to provide a train of bottles in which all of the bottles therein have, in common, an open-end trailing disposition.
Pharmaceutical companies, cosmetic manufacturers and other manufacturers sell millions of bottles yearly of such items as medicaments, lotions, ointments, salves, oils, etc., and employ various mechanical devices to treat and fill the bottles with the appropriate contents as rapidly and effectively as possible. The bottles, in an emptly condition, are usually simply randomly batched in a holding tank or the like that is equipped with means for discharging the bottles one-by-one in random open-end leading and open-end trailing dispositions to a conveying system. The conveying system advances the bottles through various stations at which the bottles are selectively oriented into common dispositions, first into an open-end trailing disposition and then into an open-end up disposition, and then the bottles are cleaned or filled or otherwise treated preparatory to being packaged, stored and sold.
The present invention relates to apparatus for orienting bottles and includes means for discriminating between a bottle advancing in open-end leading disposition and a bottle advancing in an open-end trailing disposition, the discriminating means functioning to invert those bottles of open-end leading disposition each to an open-end trailing disposition and to pass through without inversion those bottles which arrive in an open-end trailing disposition.
A number of devices for discriminating between bottles of open-end leading disposition and bottles of open-end trailing disposition are already known in the art such as, for example, the respective devices disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,339,702, issued on Sept. 5, 1967 to R. F. Novak et al., and U.S. Pat. No. 3,894,628, issued on July 15, 1975 to A. G. Pugh. The discriminating devices disclosed in these patents are capable of altering ("inverting") the disposition of those bottles which arrive in an open-end leading condition to an open-end trailing condition, and such devices are associated with means for thereafter advancing each of the bottles in open-end trailing disposition to various processing stations at which the bottles are collected and treated.
The object of utilizing mechanical means to orient the bottles in succession, clearly, is to operate upon as many of the bottles as possible in the least amount of time. Each and every stage of manipulating the bottles is a potential source of lost time and must be as efficient as possible so as not to interfere with maximized output. Clearly, when a bottle of open-end leading disposition is in the process of being inverted from an open-end leading disposition to an open-end trailing disposition, there results a delay in the rate of advancement of bottles upstream of (behind) the one being inverted, thereby restricting the number of bottles that can be inverted and further advanced in a given allotment of time.
A disadvantage associated with the devices disclosed in the aforementioned U.S. patents is that the disclosed discriminating means for inverting the bottles do not frictionally grip the bottles during the inversion (or inversion by-pass) operation, nor do they mechanically accelerate the bottles away from the feed train and into the discriminating means to enable the next bottle immediately upstream thereof to be promptly advanced for similar manipulation. As a result, the entire bottle-orienting process is not as efficient as it might otherwise be. It is just such a disadvantage that is overcome by the present invention.